Currently available paint brushes are usually made with a rigid handle, often wood, but also plastic, to which a series of natural and/or synthetically formed brush filaments are secured, usually with a ferrule at the brush filament-handle junction area, using adhesives, fasteners, such as nails, crimping, or other means. Such brushes are extensively used by do-it-yourself painters who paint on an occasional basis as contrasted to a professional painter or decorator who paints day in and day out. The do-it-yourself painter is thus unaccustomed to the use of hand, wrist and forearm muscles that are called into play in painting with the result that painting becomes a difficult, and sometimes painful, task for such an occasional painter. The same difficulties may not be so pronounced with professional painters but they still are a factor, particularly near the end of a day of painting.
Brush makers have long been cognizant of this problem and attempts have been made to overcome it. The most common approach is to manufacture the brush handle in the form that experience tends to indicate is the most suitable for the specific use for which the brush is intended. Thus, for sash work a long straight handle has been preferred. For general painting purposes a semi-beaver tail contour has been widely used, and for large, wide surfaces, such as exterior siding, a full beaver tail contour has been preferred. Although these shapes do result in a rough match between the applicator and the painting task when such factors as flow and rate of spreadability are considered, nearly all styles include a handle made of a relatively hard, rigid material, such as varnished wood or hard plastic, and hence the problem of hand and forearm fatigue remains a significant drawback. Although attempts have been made to provide a brush having a less taxing operational characteristic, no system which is applicable to all handle contours and which combines sureness of grip, gentleness of contact with the user's hand and ease of use (in the sense of decreasing hand, wrist and forearm pain and stiffness in lengthy painting tasks) has come into widespread use.
Another general problem common to many if not the great majority of brushes currently in use is the degradation of the brush during use with consequent deleterious effects on both the brush, the user and the painting surface. For example, in many if not the great majority of current brushes the ferrule at the brush filament-handle junction area works loose and paint can enter the opened areas and solidify. And in use, water, solvent, or paint, or combinations thereof, which have entered the opened spaces, are able to re-emerge and run down the handle toward the user's hand, thus making a mess and possibly dripping an unwanted color onto a freshly painted surface.
A further annoying and dangerous problem occurs when portions of the end of the ferrule nearest the handle are dislodged from their normal lay-flat position, thus presenting an exposed sharp edge. This is particularly serious when the terminal exposed edge with its associated sharp upper corner is displaced away from a snug fitting relationship with the upper end of the brush filaments and/or the lower, concealed end of the brush handle. Such an exposed edge or sharp corner can easily cut the flesh of the user when in sliding contact with the user's hand.
And finally it is well known that no system for providing the above described desirable attributes and avoiding the above described drawbacks which is adaptable to the mass production of brushes has been proposed, let alone entered the marketplace.